


Fall in love and fall apart

by basepaths



Category: Baseball RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 06:11:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basepaths/pseuds/basepaths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His mind is always trailing off, thinking abstractedly about the patterns in the outfield grass at Busch Stadium. It’s how it’s always been, how it always will be; you can’t bring up one Cardinals ace without bringing up the other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall in love and fall apart

**Author's Note:**

> Work of FICTION, meaning this is purely made-up stuff that never happened, except for the parts that are taken from real interviews. In NO WAY is this associated with anything remotely official.
> 
> Based on real quotes, schedules, and events. I tried to write the dialogue and descriptions and stuff based on the way the players talk/act in real life (I’ve seen my fair share of interviews and videos). There are parts where it’s the same day/situation but the POV changes in the middle of it, sorry if it gets hard to follow. Sections that aren’t dated are mostly random explanations and things like that. 
> 
> EDIT: I changed it so that it's in chronological order.
> 
> Enjoy!!
> 
> Oh, and bear with me because this is the first writing I've ever published on a website.

Adam is religious. It’s in a way that’s uniquely his own, relationship with God that Chris has never bothered to ask about because in all honestly he doesn’t understand it, finds it a little dull. Georgia boy beaming around at everyone and thanking the Lord after he goes seven or eight scoreless. It’s enough to make Chris wonder what the hell Adam’s doing with him, but he doesn’t ask aloud, fearful as he is of jinxing it.

Sometimes, when the two of them are alone, Adam will look thoughtfully at a wall or some background object and say something that’s completely out of nowhere, and Carp will stare at him. It’ll be something about pitching, or about life, or occasionally, about Carp himself. Occasionally Adam will blurt something out that’s borderline insightful and most of the time he won’t make any sense, rambling about sunsets in the South or way Chris’s tattoos swirl around his ankle.

He’s always dancing around the clubhouse and dugout, and sometimes the other guys join in, adding their own complicated moves until the whole thing looks ridiculous once the cameras find them and they’re on live TV. They mostly do it either pre-game or when they’ve got at least a three run lead going into the bottom of the eighth. He has his elaborately choreographed handshake with Jake Westbrook, his different dances for each Cardinal’s walk up song, his stupid “showering without water” thing that Kyle Lohse is still trying to learn. Fans love it; the whole goddam midwest loves it.

Adam has had at least two extensive conversations with everyone that’s ever worn red and white, complimenting plays and calming down the younger guys when he needs to. Chris thinks Adam might have picked that up from when Chris himself eased him through his first few appearances, although Adam, friendly creature that he is, takes it to new levels. It’s enough to make him at least a little proud, knowing that he helped someone become a positive presence, even though he’s sure Adam would have ended up that way no matter what; it’s probably how he’s always been. You get the sense that everyone trusts him, tall and reliable right-handed pitcher; people love Adam Wainwright just as much as they respect him.

And then we have Carpenter, who always finds himself at the center of some sort of controversy.

Or, okay, he doesn’t find himself there so much as he unintentionally puts himself there. But it isn’t his fault, not entirely, that he gets impossibly fired up during games, outcome of a swinging strikeout or getting lit up for a few runs in the first, depending on how he’s pitching.

If he’s in the midst of a good start, he’s overly-energized on the mound, cursing and punching the air until he’s all over the place, HD cameras and professionalism all but forgotten and faded into the background.

Midsummer 2010, and he shouted at Dusty Baker from what he thought was a safe distance. He doesn’t even remember what he said or why he said it, just that it ended with him being backed into the wall behind home plate, Cueto’s spikes digging into his back, small portion of Cincinnati calling for his blood. Completely-unprofessional-never-seen-anything-like-it. He was certain most of the sportswriters agreed with him word-for-word, even if they ripped him pretty hard for using the term “on the street” in one of his interviews.

A couple months before that, he’d screamed “MOTHERFUCKER!” at the Diamondbacks’ dugout after Edwin Jackson plunked him on the back. Called “fuck you” while he walked to first and Jackson said some stuff back, all of it captured and analyzed on MLB Network. People wrote obnoxious articles about him that he didn’t read, just overheard bits and pieces of.

Adam doesn’t pull crap like that, sits like a ray of sunshine on the bench, that pure, untouched smile glued to his face. Carp remembers Adam throwing behind some guy as retaliation once, but that never even escalated into anything big. It’s hopeless, how not-intimidating his personality is. Although Carp supposes that doesn’t matter, simply because Adam’s so damn effective on the mound when he’s healthy.

Wainwright has confidence, too. Not so much in the same way Carpenter does, because Carp is cocky when he’s good and angry when he’s bad. But Adam's got this steadiness that no one, hitter or otherwise, can touch.

Carp supposes that’s part of Adam’s closer mentality, from way back in Adam’s rookie season. Maybe it toughens you up and makes you that much more effective in the rotation.

After Carp finishes an inning it’s Adam that has to calm him down. Weird role-reversal, and it’s crazy to take a step back and think of how far they’ve come since 2005.

No one says anything about how touchy-feely they are with each other, or at least not to their faces. The Cardinals are an affectionate bunch, anyway. The bullpen guys are always lounging around and cuddling during rain delays, and that looks weirder than anything he and Adam have ever pulled off during a televised game.

Carp finds himself answering all these questions, questions about the starting rotation being so close and the relationships within St. Louis’s pitching staff. He gives painfully conventional answers when the mic is passed his way, makes sure to bring up how much he appreciates Wainwright’s ability to get out of jams, how much it means to him that Adam credits him for his success as a major league pitcher.

His mind is always trailing off, thinking abstractedly about the patterns in the outfield grass at Busch Stadium. It’s how it’s always been, how it always will be; you can’t bring up one Cardinals ace without bringing up the other.

***

Adam liked Carpenter from day one, at first for no reason other than he reminded Adam of his older brother, just a bit, with the vibe he gave off. He had known who Carp was years before they met in person. He’d always associated Chris’s name with that of Roy Halladay, and later, around the fall of Adam’s first year, that of Cy Young.

Chris Carpenter eased his way into Adam's life. Nothing he could have seen coming and nothing he could have avoided, and it didn't take long for Adam’s concentration to be shot every time he saw Chris walking around in just a towel with his tattoos on full display, or when Chris’s eyes crinkled when Adam made him laugh while the pitchers warmed up.

Adam hadn’t planned on doing anything about it. But it wasn’t, he soon discovered, something he could will away, forget about like it was nothing. It never got any easier, especially once he got to know Chris better. Carp was just, well, he was always right there, offering advice about how to locate pitches or briefly rubbing Adam’s back in the dugout after Adam got shook up in an outing.

Every morning, he’d wake up and find himself still sharing a ball club with the perpetually injured but capable-when-healthy Chris Carpenter, and it never really went away, that head-over-heels feeling. Like the closer they became, the harder it got, until he was hopelessly gone on Carp and he couldn’t think straight for wanting him so bad.

Then it was October 2006, and man, that was the beginning of the end.

It’s not that he remembers the event, The Time Carp Kissed Me And It Was Not Too Bad, with as much clarity as he does, say, the pitch sequence behind each home run he’s ever given up; it’s more like he remembers the feelings and sensations that came along with it.

He remembers that first thing with Chris the way he remembers being drafted by the Atlanta Braves, cornerstone of his life that still defines most of who he is today. Same way he remembers that phone call from his mother, crying as she informed him that he’d been traded (hard to forget, as it had happened while he was asking permission to marry Jenny from her dad).

The night as a whole was fuzzy, he has trouble piecing together the majority of it.

Sticky champagne flowing down crimson letters on now-dark white uniforms, and Adam was lost underneath it all, blinking furiously. It was kind of like being underwater.

He talked into a microphone without hearing himself, deafly hoping he was making some kind of sense. People around him were blurred at the edges and whenever he wasn’t looking straight at them they would fade to black.

"I'll probably never throw another curve or slider again without thinking of those two pitches,” Adam said in complete honesty, referring to the 3-2 to Beltran and the 0-2 to Inge. “Wild. Just...crazy.”

On the other side of the locker room, Albert Pujols was laughing, clapping people on the back and looking purely elated. Someone shouted “AAAYYYYO, WAAAAINO,” into Adam’s ear and poured champagne down the back of his neck.

The reporter told Adam to get some goggles, and Adam thanked him, left to go do just that. He walked toward his locker, intending to change into the Cardinals World Series Champions 2006 shirt, maybe gather his bearings before he made a fool out of himself in a room overflowing with media.

As he stood blankly in front of his empty locker trying to remember what he was supposed to be doing, someone grabbed his shoulder. He turned around, startled, in time to see Carp grin, and then he was being pulled into a tight one-armed hug.

“Adam, my man. So fuckin’ proud.” Chris let go, flicked him on the forehead before he could lean away. “Wish you didn’t have to make it so goddam interesting toward the end, though.”

Adam laughed, feeling invincible. “Thanks, Carp.”

“Sure.”

And with absolutely no precedent, Carp placed a hand between Adam’s shoulder blades, leaned forward and sloppily kissed the corner of his mouth. It didn’t last long enough for Adam to push him away, nor long enough for him to react at all, really, so he stood still with his body tingling and his head pounding, waiting for an explanation of what was happening.

Carp stumbled backwards after half a second, tossed his head back and brought his arms up, screamed, “FUCK YEAH, BABY! WORLD CHAMPS!” Everyone in the locker room raised their respective glass bottles, whooping and jumping around and Adam couldn’t keep up with basic chronology, confused about whether Chris had just kissed him or if it was just some sort of twisted drunk misinterpretation of a congratulatory pat on the back.

Carp, still grinning, punched him lightly on the bicep and walked away to have a serious talk with Tony LaRussa, and Adam had never been more confused in his life, struck dumb and unsure of what was real, head spinning.

Adam never shook it off. By the time he got home and removed his sticky uniform (which he’d forgotten he was wearing until Jenny mentioned it while they were in the car), his hands were still trembling and he couldn’t for the life of him make them stop. He passed out on the bed while Jenny was still getting changed in the bathroom, woke up the next morning and felt like he was walking on air.

***

(July 2010)

They were in Albert Pujols’ private jet to Anaheim, and Carp could say that he really felt like they all earned it, him and Wainwright and Yadi and Pujols and Holliday. The flight was one of the coolest things he’d ever experienced, and he savored every second, even though the pit of his stomach dropped at each downward movement. Adam kept momentarily clutching at his shoulder, and Carp made fun of him for it.

Adam was acting like a little kid, goofy grin and it seemed like nothing could bring him down to earth. They were unstoppable, the way all the Cardinals seemed to be this season. Both of them were healthy, and Carp wanted nothing more than for it to stay like that forever.

Days later, Carp held his daughter in one arm while a reporter asked who he’d want to play him if his life was made into a movie.

“Adam Wainwright,” he said without hesitation, because Adam was sitting a few yards to his left, being interviewed himself. “He’d do a good job, too,” he added, hoping the reporter would bring it up with Adam and wanting to see his reaction.

The same reporter asked Adam the same question when she went over to his booth. Adam initially said it’d have to be someone really jacked, for obvious reasons. Maybe Matt Damon. She told Adam that he was casted to play Chris by the man himself. Adam refrained from calling “You wish, man” at Carp because both his kids were there and it looked like he was in the middle of answering a tough question. He kept a straight face, told her things like “Well, I’d have to be real serious on the mound,” and some other stuff about Chris from off the top of his head.

He pestered Chris about it the second he got the chance, latching onto his arm and asking, “Why, though?”

Chris shrugged, only said, “Just thought you’d be good at it. I mean, you know me pretty well.”

Adam snorted because that was an understatement. “I know you better than you know yourself.”

Chris grinned. “Probably.”

***

(The offseason)

Unstoppable one-two punch, nothing would be different, and Adam’s head was always spinning because they’d known each other for a long time and he’d always been kind of curious about it, the idea that he repressed without even trying, tiny “what if” and it usually ended there.

Didn’t always end there, though, because sometimes it was late at night, when all his thoughts were subject to self-doubt, and all Adam could ever think about was Carp, who waited up for him after games and had answered all of his questions since late 2005 and 2006, when everything he wanted to know was way too personal.  


Carp, who kissed him when they were both drunk and no one happened to be looking.

Adam considered doing something about it, although he didn’t have a clue what the something would be, so he let his imagination take over and Chris Carpenter would be everywhere.

Late at night and his hands weren’t his anymore, he could pretend they were Carp’s, and that didn’t feel like such a bad thing but, wow, he almost wished it did.  


One in the morning during the offseason and it was hard not to run downstairs, then hard to keep quiet, staggering into the bathroom with his teeth gritted and his hand moving until it didn’t need to anymore. He washed himself off for about an hour after and tried not to look in the mirror, tried not to hate himself for it, but even that was too hard, so he dug his nails into the back of his wrist while he walked back up the steps, not loosening his grip until he fell asleep.

Prayed he’d have the will to never do it again but of course that didn’t work, and why would it? God forbid something be simple, as if things weren’t already difficult with his marriage, as if his elbow didn’t hurt at every angle, and now this, brand new thing to worry about that Adam was terrified would be written all over his face in neon ink.

***

(October 2011)

They clinched the NLCS, and Carp was jumping from person to person, screaming, “Fuck yeah!” and soaking everyone in the clubhouse with bubbles of alcohol. He sprinted around, past Jon Jay and Descalso taking pictures in matching grey “NL Champs” shirts, past Freese holding up the MVP trophy, eyes shining with victory. Unruly chants of "HAPPY FLIGHT!" kept rising above the noise.

He found Adam congratulating the active roster enthusiastically on the outskirts of the celebration. He ran over, grinned wide at the injured ace and grabbed his shoulders, jumped up and down. Adam was still smiling but he didn’t jump with Chris.

He tilted Adam’s head back to pour beer into his mouth, thumb holding Adam’s jaw in place and fingers sweeping lightly across his throat. Adam brought his hand up and clutched at Carp’s elbow, probably trying to get him to stop pouring faster than he could swallow so he could breathe, but Carp wasn’t having it.  
“Waino, my man, come on, let’s get you fuckin’ drunk! World fuckin’ series baby! WOOO!” He punched the bottle into the air and drew it to his own mouth, took a long gulp, and nothing so bitter would ever taste that sweet again.

Adam nodded, and his eyes were kind of misted over, which Chris didn’t fucking understand because everyone should have been as happy has he was.

“Hey, what is it?”

Adam snapped out of it, shaking his head. “Just real proud of you. Congratulations.”

Chris started laughing, pulled Adam in for a tight hug. “You’re the fuckin’ man, Waino, you know that?” He said into Adam’s neck.

His hand slid down Adam’s arm as he started to back away and Adam gripped his wrist. “Do yourself a favor and don’t do too many interviews.”

“Nah, they, they wanna talk to me too bad,” he said, cocky and buzzed.

Adam gave him a long look, like he was thinking hard. A hand closed around Carp’s wrist and he found himself being pulled away from the noise and towards the bathrooms.

“Wait, wait, need to, still need to find Berkman, and they’re getting more champagne...” Carp mumbled, but Adam didn’t listen, didn’t even acknowledge him, and Carp didn’t consider physically making him.

They passed the bathrooms and Adam kept going, glanced back and forth even though there was no good reason for anyone else to be there. He slowed his pace and let go of Carp, stumbling a little further until he disappeared into the empty shower room.

Carp stood there dumbly for a minute before trying to follow, barely even able to remain upright. He made his way into the shower room and Adam wasn’t there, even though there was no way out except for back the way he came. Then he heard the sound of a faucet turning on and the splash of water on tiles. “Waino? The hell are you doing? Is this what you dragged me here for, you son of a -” He stepped toward the sound and slipped on the wet floor, sprawling forward and almost falling facedown but catching himself at the last moment by grabbing onto the nearest shower curtain. He landed hard on his knee and when he closed his eyes and grimaced he could almost see the black and blue splotches that would surely appear on his skin within the hour.

“Holy...” Carp heard from behind the curtain he was holding on to. He scrambled around, got to his feet and found himself on the other side of the shower curtain being sprinkled by cold droplets, and Adam was standing under the shower head with his clothes on, rubbing water out of his eyes and turning the knob until the water stopped.

Adam grabbed Chris’s shoulders in an attempt to stabilize him, and Chris leaned into his warmth, pressing their bodies together in the process. He backed away as he felt Adam stiffen up.

Chris had so many questions he didn’t even know where to begin, but before he could ask any of them he started laughing uncontrollably, shoulders heaving because Adam looked like a fucking mess, dripping wet and probably freezing by now.

“Jesus, Carp,” Adam said, all serious now. “Be careful.”

Carp ignored him. “Why are you...I mean...the hell are you thinking?”

“Tryin’ to sober up.”

“Why on earth would you wanna do that?”

Adam shrugged, staring at the floor, and Carp is 100% certain that there is nothing interesting down there. “Don’t wanna do anything stupid.”

“Dude, you’re already being stupid. Taking a shower with your clothes on is stupid,” Carp reminded him fondly.

Adam sighed. “Yeah, maybe.”

Carp backtracked, remembered that Adam was going through exactly what he himself went through in 2004. Watching his teammates make it to the World Series, knowing he wouldn’t be able to help them win it, knowing it would be torture until the final out or maybe beyond that, depending on whether they won or lost.  


And it was torture. Being swept by the Red Sox hurt like a killer migraine.

So he slid down with his back to the wall and his shoulder pressed into a corner, extended his legs out in front of him and told Adam to sit with him. Adam obliged, bringing himself down to sit cautiously at the base of the opposite wall, knees tucked into his chest and arms clasped around his calves.  


He looked tired, or conflicted, or something, and Chris had a not-completely-unfamiliar urge to reach out and touch him, comfort him, tell him it’ll pass and that they’ll win the fucking world series just for him, even though that would jinx everything.

“You gotta tell me what’s going on, man,” Chris said, and Adam wasn’t even looking at him; he wasn’t looking at anything. “Swear I won’t say anything, but just tell me. I don’t know.”

“It’s nothin’,” Adam said quietly. "Promise."

“Well what do you want me to do, then? Why are you being weird?”

Finally, Adam looked up, eyes as piercing and olive as they always were. It made Chris feel weird and kind of fuzzy, judgement-impaired and kinda destroyed, too much going on at once, and it was a funny thing, having a close relationship with someone as good looking as Adam Wainwright.

God damn, but it’d always been like that.

“Do you remember when we clinched five years ago?”

“That was your rookie year,” Chris noted like Adam didn’t already know that. Adam nodded, waited for him to continue.

He remembered how awesome that celebration was, like being on top of the world. He remembered each pitch like he was still on the mound. It was just that he had almost no memory of the celebration after, only that it was kind of like this one, but better because he wasn’t being sidetracked by stupid crap like this. “Barely. A little. Why?”

“Forget it,” Adam said evenly. “It didn’t happen.” It sounded more like he was talking to himself than to Chris.

Chris watched Adam close his eyes, take a deep breath and stand up, hands in his pockets and downcast eyes. “I’m goin’ back,” Chris heard. He blinked twice and Adam disappeared, left muddy shoe prints on blue-and-white tiles, and Chris felt like he was torn in half. Like he was missing something, but he couldn’t quite figure it out, and Adam was one step ahead.

And then, oh, something clicked, and suddenly, he felt very, very dizzy. The celebration, the one that was more out of hand than he could've anticipated. He’d kissed Adam Wainwright, the goddam rookie, for no reason other than that he was tall and standing right there, in front of Chris looking too innocent and too bewildered.  


Chris remained on the floor, attempting to sort out the various conflicts in his head with his head tucked between his knees. He waited out another ten or twenty minutes before muscling himself up and walking back into the locker room. By then, the only people around were workers sent to clean up the mess made by the players. He got his stuff and texted Freese for a ride to the hotel because Freese’s sister was supposed to drive all the unmarried guys, the guys that don’t have wives to get them from place to place when they’re drunk. He vaguely remembered Alyson leaving half an hour ago after he assured her he’d get there okay.  
He sent the text, then heard an ominous muffled buzz seconds later. For fuck’s sake, David, you idiot.

Sure enough, Freese’s phone was sitting purposelessly on the floor, lodged under a sweatshirt and somehow functioning despite the puddles of champagne, but completely useless without Freese. Carp rolled his eyes and muttered “motherfuck” before jogging out to the parking lot just in case someone willing and able to drive was still hanging around.

There were four cars, none of them belonging to a member of the Freese family and all of them empty. Carp was by himself on this one. He debated calling his wife but he figured he shouldn’t bother her, not this late, and she’d probably get pissed at him for being so trashed, even if it was a celebration.

So he walked halfway across the parking lot, thinking, it’s just a mile or two, and hoping the cold would let up at some point because his clothes were wet and sticky with alcohol, and the air was making him shiver violently.

***

 (continued)

Adam sat in his car, hunched forward with his head pressed against the steering wheel, waiting to sober up enough to drive. Not logical, not in the remote, but worth a shot, and he needed time to think anyway. He’d stay there all night if he had to. It’s wasn’t like he needed to rest up for a start, he thought bitterly.  
He heard a distant cough from outside and he looked up, confused because the celebration was over an hour ago; it might have even been days since they were all in the same room. Everyone could be in Arlington by now for all he knew, game 3 or 4 or 5.

Tall man with broad shoulders, walking fluidly with a small duffel slung across his back. Adam rapped his knuckles on the window and reflexively yelled, “Carp!”  


Stupid, stupid, stupid, Adam thought with his heart pounding, rolling down his window and feeling a rush of cold air as Carp leaned over to level his face with Adam’s.

“Are you kidding me? Are you fucking d-driving right now?”

“No, I’m, I’m waitin',” Adam said, hoping it made a lick of sense and watching Carp’s lips tremble and teeth chatter with cold. “Jesus, you look freezing. Why aren’t you at the hotel?”

Carp grumbled something about not having a ride, how he was just going to walk.

“No. Don’t,” Adam said, panicked. “It’s twenty degrees right now. Just,” he opened the door to the passenger’s seat, “stay for a bit, okay?”

Adam thought Carp might say no and keep walking, in which case Adam would have to get up and haul him in, lock all the doors and hold him hostage. But Carp didn’t hesitate too long before walking around the front of the car, opening the door to the passenger’s seat and slipping in, slamming it shut the second he was inside so as not to let the cold breeze in. The tip of his nose was bright pink. He stared straight ahead.

Adam turned on the seat heater and they sat in silence while Chris’s shivering became less pronounced, eventually stopping altogether. Carp leaned back with his arms crossed over his chest.

Light rain started to fall, and Adam was about to say something to break the tension when Carp turned to him, opened his mouth and, “So I remember.” Look on his face so serious it was hard not to flinch.

Adam's heart jumped into his throat, but he said nothing. Without anything in mind, he reached out and touched Carp, placing a hand on his side and leaning forward. It was getting progressively more difficult for Adam not to climb into his lap, not to lace his arms around his neck. “Yeah? And?”

Carp didn’t speak, probably terrified as hell and who could blame him? Adam shifted his hand down a little, finding the edge of Carp’s shirt and digging under it, searching for skin and leaning closer still. His fingers brushed against the skin over Carp’s hipbone, smooth as marble and cold to the touch, and Carp visibly shuddered.

“And I don't know. About any of this."

Adam pushed his hand up until his palm was flat against Carp’s side, snaked it around to his back and now Carp’s face was blurry, they were so close.

“That’s too bad,” Adam said quietly.

“Yeah,” Carp exhaled, and Adam seized the opportunity while Chris's mouth was opened. He tilted his head and parted his lips, and closed the last bit of space between himself and Carp, squeezing shut his eyes and praying frantically that this would be okay, just this once, swear to God.

Carp’s initial reaction was shock, and Adam felt it like a current, but he didn’t back away, just pressed into Carp, thinking, please, c’mon, please.

It took a second, but Carp breathed out, dry explosion of heat on Adam’s face. He opened his mouth, tongue coming out and swiping Adam’s lower lip. Adam made a muffled noise of surprise, turned on beyond belief, and then Carp was all over him, fingers dragging through his hair while he tried to taste the inside of his mouth.

After a while Adam was past caring about anything but this, this sensation of Carp being everywhere. Now it really was Carp’s hands that were all over his body, the way he dreamed they would be when he was awake all those nights, one pressed firmly against the back of his neck and one resting on his thigh, rubbing up and down and making Adam want everything at once.

Carp started to unbutton Adam’s shirt, agonizingly slow. The tips of his fingers kept brushing against Adam’s bare chest, making him see white.

He needed more, and he was afraid this was going to be the only time, his only opportunity, so he shifted his angle and opened his mouth on Carp’s jawline, trailed his hand across his stomach, down until he was palming the front of Chris’s pants.

Chris’s breath got uneven and heavy. He moaned, soft and low. It gave Adam chills.

He wanted to go to the back seat, where there was enough room for him to align his body with Carp’s, kiss him proper and good and deep with one hand down Carp’s pants, but he was terrified that if he paused for even half a second Carp would leave.

Adam took his hand away and Carp grunted in protest, but he shifted his hips until he was positioned with his thigh rubbing between Carp’s legs and Carp groaned, his arms winding around Adam’s waist. They kissed again, passionate and kind of desperate.

They made out for at least ten minutes, making muffled noises and grinding their hips together. It felt unbelievable, better than Adam even expected. Tremors of pleasure shook through him and it felt like falling into crevasses, like toppling off a mountain the way Carp’s skin was touching his.

He unbuttoned Carp’s pants, too in the moment to think about it, and then his hand was working and Carp was gone for a while, cursing and stuttering. Adam wasn’t sure he could even do that to a person, let alone someone like Chris Carpenter, who’s been elite and out-of-the-question since Adam came up. But Chris’s eyes were closed and he looked...Adam didn’t even know how to describe it. He looked like he could come any second.

Then, too soon, there were lights, bright white-yellow and belonging to a car judging by the way the rose and fell, faded slowly against Adam’s dashboard. He stopped, sat completely still and without sound, and Adam felt something click into place now that Carp’s facial expressions were no longer distracting him from rational thinking. A harsh whisper of this is bad and we shouldn’t do it.

The lights disappeared but left them both visibly tense. For the first time that night, it crossed Adam’s mind that getting found out about something like this would be detrimental, both for his job and his family. He realized he was dimly disappointed that he was no longer touching Chris inch-for-inch, just the sleeve of his jacket brushing against Carp’s leg, and Carp’s arm was in an arch around his waist but he wasn’t pulling Adam closer anymore.

Cautiously, Adam reached up, not meaning to do anything in particular but Carp was backing away now, eyes darting towards the door and fingers gliding toward the handle.

Adam cleared his throat. “I, um...”

“I think I need to get home.”

Adam stared. “Oh. Okay.”

“So,” Carp said slowly, measuring his words and drawing them out far more than Adam thought was necessary, “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“I guess.”

He let it go, even though he was still half-hard and definitely had some things to say to Carp. The word “coward” rang pointlessly in his ears.

Carp left without saying goodbye.

Adam touched his swollen lips while the beginnings of tears blurred his vision. He didn’t watch Carp walk away, nor did he text him to make sure he got back unharmed. There was nothing for it.

***

(December 2011)

Adam spent most of the offseason in Georgia, fishing with Jenny and their daughters, and once November came around he was a father of three, though he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around how that’d happened despite his best efforts, because it felt like Jen had only just been pregnant with their first girl.

Christmas came and went and Jen informed Adam that he seemed preoccupied, not bothering to ask why, just stating it like a fact.

He constantly replayed his last conversation with Chris in his head, looping it over and all he could do was reflect.

It happened while most of them were giddy and high off the World Series, the next day, in fact, after a celebratory dinner. After Carp hadn’t spoken to him since the night he was in Adam’s car, panting with Adam’s hand in his pants.

“I just, Jesus, Carp, I think I might...Well, I know, know I might be, you know, like that, or just, I am when it comes to you,” and this was when Adam’s face had turned red, the way it did senior year of high school when he made an eerily similar confession to a different friend, equally confusing situation for everyone involved.

“Well fuck, Adam!” and Carp didn’t need to scream; they were alone. “Fuck,” and Adam was startled at how genuinely angry Carp was. “This is the last fucking thing I need right now, you know that?”

“Don’t pretend you’re not the same, don’t even try,” and oh, how he wished he could be sure about that one.

“I don’t have to pretend shit. This one is all you.”

“That’s not true,” he said. Carp started it five years ago.

“Listen, Wainwright. I don’t wanna do this with you.” Carp had paused there, mulling something over. “But I don’t wanna stop being friends because of something this stupid, either, because this isn’t fair. To anyone. I mean, this is the kind of shit they talk about. The kind of thing that divides clubhouses.”

“Oh, because I wanna stop talkin’ to you. Because me wanting to - to do that stuff makes me hate you, yeah, Chris, that’s how it works. And no one's gonna know about what happened, or happens, or anything, unless you tell them. Which I really hope you don't.”

“Look, I don’t fucking know what you want me to do about this, okay?” Evading the point, but Adam didn't bring that up because one criticism could make Chris erupt.

Chris backed away, started pacing. They were in another empty parking lot, but now it wasn’t raining and it wasn’t night. There was a faint aura of sunset lingering, hues of orange at the corners of the sky, short October day after an incredibly lengthy season. “This doesn’t happen to me.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“I’ll see you next season, or, I don’t know, I’ll call you when you’re ready to let this go and you just gotta...just get over this.”

And Adam was wrecked for days, then months, and soon it was December and he still wasn’t quite over it, because it was too complicated to resolve itself.  


He chewed on his fingernail, bad offseason habit that he couldn’t break for the life of him. The phone rang and Jen answered cheerfully, daily obliviousness to her husband’s blatant love for a different person in tact. That wasn’t how it was supposed to be with a baseball wife, Adam thought cynically. They were supposed to be blissfully unaware of cleat chasers in bars, not drunk teammates.

“Adam, honey,” she called from their room, “It’s Chris.”

Adam didn’t think twice, didn’t really think about anything, walked in and grabbed the phone, waving Jenny away somewhat rudely.

“Hello?”

“Hey, man,” and oh, it was paradise, hearing Carp’s voice.

***

 (continued)

On the phone, Carp told Adam all these things that Adam didn’t ask about - how his kids were, the Christmas tree he bought that didn’t fit in the living room, and the two whiteout blizzards in New Hampshire. All the things that Adam would have asked about anyway.

Adam laughed when Carp described walking around on snowshoes feeling like an idiot, and Carp zoned out after he finished telling the story, one hand holding the phone and one drifting idly across his stomach. He had called Adam on an impulse that was faintly brought on by a knot of guilt, not expecting anything and almost hoping Adam wouldn’t pick up, but this was going okay. Maybe whatever damage he’d caused was reversible.

“You know,” Adam said, and paused. Carp waited with his fingers trailing down, holding his breath. “I thought about you.”

Carp exhaled, traced a circle over the bare skin on his stomach. “Yeah?”

“Only a little. Not more than I usually do.”

And what the fuck was that supposed to mean? “Huh.” 

“Are you still in New Hampshire?”

Carp had to think for a second, mildly bewildered that he wasn’t sure what state he was in, but Missouri did have the same winter weather as most parts of the Northeast. He rubbed his forehead, trying to remember. “Um.” He looked around and almost everything in the room had been there since he was a teenager. There was an unworn Blue Jays cap perched stiffly and precariously on the edge of a wooden desk, brim arched too much for Carp’s liking. “Yeah.”

He’d been there for a while now, and the rest of his family was in Canada for three days, left that morning after he’d opted out of driving with them to Quebec because he needed to keep up his workouts. And, he admitted to himself, he was sick of the road.

His plan for the next couple days was to wake up early, pick up the weights for a couple hours then go for a jog on the trail behind his backyard, the one he never told anyone about because it had always been untouched.

“For how long?”

“Dunno. Another couple weeks. Family’s gone right now.”

“Oh.” Silence from the other end, static and grainy and Carp wished he wasn’t so fucked up about this, that it could be simple, just this one thing in his life that didn’t have to go awry.

“I could drive up, then,” Adam practically whispers, and Chris wonders whether Jen is within hearing distance of him.

“You could,” Carp said, excitement overruling any concerns he once had.

“I mean, if you want. If you’re not still. You know. Mad at me.”

Chris couldn’t let the opportunity to apologize slip, not with the emptiness he’d felt for the past two months still hanging over him like clouds. “Fuck, Adam, I’m really sorry about all of it.” Chris twisted the cord on the phone around his finger until he could feel blood stop circulating to the tip. “I was being...I don’t know. I’ve felt awful about it for a while.”

“I don’t mind,” said Adam, in the same voice he’d use if some asshole reporter brought up a three-run homer during a post game interview.

“So yes, drive up here. Or take a plane. Whatever. I’ve missed you, man. Shit’s boring without the guys, you know?”

Adam laughed, quick and light and Carp pushed his hand past the waist of his shorts.

“When should I?”

“Whenever you can. They get back on like, the 30th, though.” Chris wasn’t sure why that felt like an important detail, but he decided it would be weird as fuck to have Adam drifting around the same house as Chris’s wife and son, as he was now very much a part of Chris’s sexual history, right along with Chris’s high school girlfriend and college hook-ups.

“Right.”

“Bring a ton of coats and a pair of snow pants, ‘cause there’s nothing to do inside except TV and cards. We can probably go hiking.”

“Got it. Sounds good. I’ll leave tomorrow morning,” Adam said, bad at trying to sound nonchalant. Chris imagined Adam’s face framed by snow and evergreens, eyes that rivaled forests and teeth that matched snow, and he moved his hand faster.

Adam said, “I’ll see you Tuesday afternoon, then,” and Chris pushed up into his hand, trying not to think about what the fuck he was playing at, really.  


The next day, Monday, was tedious, and Chris spent all of it thinking about what he’d do when Adam got there. How he’d tell Adam that he hadn’t meant to hurt him, it’s just, well, things got really difficult and confusing and Chris wasn’t well-adjusted to any of it yet. He fell asleep on the couch that night at 10 p.m., hours earlier than his body was used to, but he was exhausted, drained after days of going to bed at one and rising at eleven, only to repeat the cycle.

When he was woken up, it was pitch black everywhere except the wall he was facing, where there were rectangles of light that bent quickly into different shapes. He heard wheels scraping against ice and sat up because his driveway was too long and his house set too far back for him to be hearing cars passing through the road.  


He got out of bed and pulled on a sweater, pounding down the steps, feet quick with adrenaline because Adam wasn’t supposed to get there for another few hours and Alyson couldn’t be back this soon. He put on boots and opened the garage, thinking no way this could be Adam, he’d have to have been on the road all night.  


Yet the automatic garage door slid up and there was Adam’s car with Adam walking away from it, bundled in what looked like three different winter jackets and waddling awkwardly with the strap of a duffel slung over his shoulder. He looked like an oversized penguin.

“Dude, you scared the shit out of me!” Chris called giddily, practically skipping over to greet Adam like it was Christmas again and he was five. “Why are you here this early?” Chris stopped in front of Adam and got a clear look at his face. Cheeks that glowed pink and eyes that looked liquid grey in the moonlight. It made Chris nostalgic for the last couple times they were alone like this, faint now-familiar sense of longing.

Adam looked at Chris with a blank expression that Chris couldn’t decode for the life of him. He waited for Adam to say something.

With no warning, Adam dropped his bag, grabbed Chris’s shoulders and pushed until Chris’s back was up against a side of the house with Adam’s hands pressing into the wall on either side of his head. Adam leaned in and crushed their lips together, and Chris felt it immediately; same thing he felt when they were sitting in Adam’s car. He didn’t resist this time, either. He kissed Adam back hard, driven by the feeling that everything that’d happened between them in the last three months was dissolving, diminishing like the miles that had separated the two of them mere hours ago.

Adam’s arms fit around Chris’s waist, pulled him in tighter until there was no space between their bodies and they were touching inch-for-inch. They made out like they were sixteen, bodies rubbing together and Adam occasionally gasping, until Adam broke away, stumbling back and looking kind of off.

He mumbled something about saying goodbye to his daughters and Jenny being angry, then something else about how he “didn’t feel like waiting anymore.” Chris did the math and realized Adam must have been running on virtually no sleep if he really did drive the entire night to get here. It was an eighteen hour drive; he’d looked it up back in November.

Chris decided to play it simple, forget that they’d just kissed under automatic porch light and that he was still kind of fucked up about the whole thing, because he had learned over the years that having a terrible short term memory usually put you at an advantage for success. “C’mon, kid, you gotta see my house, and then you can crash in the guest room or something. Jesus, you look dead,” he added, seeing Adam cover his hand over his mouth in a huge yawn.

Adam smiled at the dig, shrugged, what can I say. “You look good.”

Chris flicked him on the chest. “You too, Waino.”

Adam studied him. “New Hampshire’s been good to you.”

Chris rolled his eyes, grabbed Adam’s wrist and pulled, through the garage and into the back door. It didn’t look like Adam could make it through any sort of house tour, so Chris led him to the guest bedroom, running into the hallway closet to get extra blankets as Adam stripped off his layers until he was just wearing a fleece zip-up and sweatpants.

Chris wanted to make fun of him for wearing snow pants that had suspenders attached to them, but by the time he brought in the blankets Adam was already half passed out on the bed, under the sheets, with most of the pillows knocked onto the floor.

“You good?” Chris asked, just to make sure.

“Mmmmmph.”

“See you tomorrow.” He walked away and turned off the light, headed back downstairs and watched TV until he fell asleep.

The sun rose eventually, shining on a fresh douse of snow. As Chris woke up and got dressed, he was a strange combination of angry and horrified at himself for not shoving Adam away earlier. Bad decisions made under a full moon, and this was getting ridiculous. He was married and he wasn’t like that, married he wasn’t going to stray in the first place, but if he did, it would be with a goddam groupie or something.

He would pretend nothing had happened, try to hold himself together enough that it would at the very least appear that he was in a sound mental state and not even a little gone on Adam.

Adam looked like his usual self, already at the kitchen counter when Carp came downstairs, drinking orange juice through a straw with his legs swinging back and forth. No coffee. Adam had enough energy most of the time to do well without caffeine.

With the proper lighting and without two different hoods pulled over Adam’s head, Chris could see that his hair had grown a bit since the playoffs, and that he didn’t look quite as tired as he had last night. Tired. Chris would blame it on both of them being too tired for their own good if Adam brought it up. Stupid, but there wasn’t really anything else.

“G’morning,” Adam said. Chris waved at him lazily.

They didn’t talk baseball at first, just delved into mundane topics like workout routines and family events, but eventually Adam mentioned his shock at Pujols signing with the Angels, and after that Chris asked about Adam’s elbow (“Feels fine,” Adam answered brightly. “Seriously this time.”) Adam brought up the world series and he listening patiently as Chris tried to verbalize how fucking awesome it was to pitch in it this year without making Adam feel bad. Adam’s gaze was too intense for morning and Chris was having trouble holding it.

“I’ve never started a playoff game,” Adam said.

“Can’t imagine it’d be much different from closing one,” although that probably wasn’t accurate. Chris was of the somewhat unpopular opinion that there was much more pressure on the starter.

“True. I guess you’re just so locked in either way.”

“Yeah. ’06, baby. You felt it.”

“Nothin’ better in the world.” Adam got up, padded over to the sink and rinsed off his glass. “What’re we doin’ today?”

Chris shrugged again. “We could hike. It’s supposed to snow again tonight, so if we’re gonna go it’s gotta be now, you know, while there’s still a trail.”

“There’s real hiking here?”

“Yeah, there’s this path behind my backyard that I go running on every day. It’s nice, it’s like, through the woods.”

“No hunting?”

“No, no hunting. There are like, two deer that live here and one of them is really little.”

Adam nodded. “Okay. And, Honestly?” he said, fidgeting with the watch on his wrist and adopting his far-away look. Rushing like he was afraid Chris would stop him, he said, “You’ll kill me for bringing this up, but I don’t know why you acted like it was so bad. You know. After. When we were in my car and we -”

“Are you kidding me, Adam, I didn’t invite you here to -”

“Hey, relax. I’m just sayin’.”

“I’m relaxed," he said through gritted teeth. He couldn’t understand why Adam would want to make this into something other than what it was.

Adam waited for him to keep talking. “It wasn’t bad. I just reacted bad,” Chris explained, calmer upon remembering that Adam owed him nothing and he owed Adam everything.

“So it was...what was it, then?” Adam looked too hopeful for his own good.

And this is what Adam does to him. Takes him down from his most pissed-off state and melts him to the core, just by sitting there looking at Chris the way he does.  


Chris sighed, thinking, fuck it, why not just tell him. “It was so good,” he admitted, truth pouring out of him before he considered its consequences. Adam was hanging on to his every breath. “I never thought it could be that good, not with you.”

“Wow. Thanks,” Adam said sarcastically, and Chris hadn’t meant to sound like that but that’s what Adam got for asking a stupid question.

“You wanted to know.”

Adam shrugged. “I guess.”

Chris stared at him in disbelief, then let out a maniacal laugh and looked at the ceiling, mind whirring. “I can’t believe this shit is happening,” he told no one in particular.

“Hm.”

Chris wished he could understand Adam, just for half a minute. “So are we going?”

“What?”

“Hiking.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Chris wanted to say it, though, despite the confusion, despite the panicked state of mind, just, it's so so good to have you back, man, you have no idea.

*** 

(continued)

Carp left the kitchen wordlessly, probably assuming Adam would follow him down the hallway. Adam waited until Carp got a good five yards, then half-sprinted half-tiptoed behind him until he collided into Carp’s turned back, drawing an “oof” of protest and surprise. He wrapped his arms around Carp’s waist, clasping his hands around Carp’s stomach and noticing how solid it was, muscles constricted.

Carp sighed, patted Adam’s forearm. “I missed you, babe,” Carp confessed.

Man, was that good to hear. “I missed you too,” Adam breathed, relieved that Carp was returning his affection. He broke away, bounded upstairs to get his shoes and multiple coats.

By the time he came back down, he could see Carp through the kitchen window, standing outside with hands shoved into his pockets and staring out into the expanse of wilderness. Adam could see the path, worn down under Carp’s feet and winding through trees whose branches were weighed down by snow.  


He made his way out of the house, stumbling into the deep white, slightly overheated in his layers but happy to be waterproof as he took another step and tripped face first into a pile of snow.

Carp turned around, started laughing hysterically the second he saw Adam flailing and trying to get up. He walked over carefully, offered Adam a hand, still snickering while Adam stuttered “Not - funny - face is - numb.”

He pulled Adam to his feet, dusted the thin powder off the top of Adam’s hood. It felt like that one time it snowed in Brunswick, right around the holidays, when he was eight and his dad kept having to brush snowflakes from his hair.

Carp looked him up and down. “You good?”

Adam straightened up, shaking himself off. “Yeah. ‘M fine. Let’s go.”

They walked silently for a while, and Adam kind of liked it out there, where everything was simple and quiet. It wasn’t enough to make him forget that he still needed closure, though. One of the many things he wanted from Carp that he doubted Carp would give him.

But he thought, one last try. They had to be worth something. If it was nothing he would have been able to give up when Chris left him stranded in his car. “So.”  


Carp didn’t say anything, and Adam kept at it. “So,” he repeated, “If it was...good, like you said, why were you so...I don’t know, you freaked out about it. And then last night - this morning, whatever - we did it again and then you just -”

Carp stopped walking abruptly. “Are you fucking with me right now?”

“No. Just wanted to know.”

Carp turned around and started walking back the way they came with long, angry strides. “There isn’t much to know.”

Adam pace with him. “Carp, listen. I know it’s hard, I get it. I, I’ve been there. But you can trust me, seriously, if you’re, you know -”

“Jesus, Adam!”

“Well, what did you expect me to think?” Adam exploded. “You know, if I’d have known you were gonna be like this I wouldn’t have done anything in the first place.”  


Carp didn’t respond to that. His nose was scrunched up the way it got when something wasn’t sitting right with him.

“Look, I don’t want you to hate me,” said Carp, almost to himself.

“I could never hate you,” Adam said, trying for a more gentle approach. He started to reach tentatively toward Carp but drew his hand back, thinking it was probably not the time.

“I believe you.”

“So are you saying I should just let it go, then?”

Carp’s shoulders tensed up and it took him too long to answer. “I don’t know, Adam,” he said, sounding resigned. “Just give me some time, okay? Let me think.”  


“Okay.”

They walked the rest of the way back in a long stretch of silence, Adam wishing he could know where things would go from there, how it would play out.  


They wound up back where they started, near the indent in the snow where Adam fell earlier. Carp stopped before they got to the doorstep, looking like he wanted to say something, and Adam mentally prepared for the worst.

Instead, Carp kissed him, intense and breathless until Adam thought the snow around them would melt into the grass.

“Fuck, I can’t, Adam,” Carp said, breaking away too soon and Adam ran his fingers up Carp’s thigh, a subtle reminder of yeah, you can. “Can’t do this with you,” but both of Carp’s hands were clamped on Adam’s shoulders and the two of them were still pressed together, feverish under winter clothing.

Adam leaned his forehead into Carp’s, said softly, “I don’t mind.” He meant he didn’t mind if Carp was all messed up about it, he’d take Carp any way he could get him.

So they went inside, spent the morning and parts of the afternoon in the guest bedroom, Adam with one hand on a wall and one on Carp’s back, biting his lip and trying not to cry out. Carp doing things Adam never thought he’d be okay with, and it drove Adam kind of insane.

Adam went faster until neither of them could stand it anymore, and they collapsed onto the bed after in a tangled mess of pitcher’s arms and too-long legs. Adam propped himself up on his left elbow, ran his fingernails along Carp’s tattoos and Carp sat motionless, hitched breathing and eyes following Adam’s hand.  


“Can’t, huh?” Adam said quietly.

Chris sighed, obviously done talking about any of it. “You know I'm sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

Chris pulled him closer, and Adam decided the offseason wouldn’t be enough time for this.

***

(Spring Training 2012)

In February, before Chris was officially hurt, all he could think about was how Adam’s face looked when it was flushed with a combination of concentration and pleasure. The way he’d looked when he leapt into Chris’s arms upon seeing him since they’d met up in New Hampshire, that kid grin like Chris was making his fucking year by being there. 

Chris continually found himself being pulled into supply closets and shower stalls. It was still enough to phase him, hearing Adam’s voice, “C’mon, Carp,” over and over. Chris always followed, even though walking fast made his breath hitch.

Adam became such a familiar thing that Chris constantly forgot that it was wrong, so fucked up and not really who he was, and in all likelihood not who Adam really was either.

Although he wasn’t sure about the latter. Once they stayed at a hotel in Arizona and Adam was in Chris’s room at night, strewn lazily across the adjacent bed because it was too hot to share one. Both of them were lying on their backs and staring up at the ceiling. Adam rambled about his brother teaching him how to pitch, then about being sixteen on the varsity baseball team, then about a guy named Eric from junior year, his first baseman or something. Apparently, Eric was really nice, tall and lanky and “he had the same color hair as you, Carp.” Adam sounded too distant for Chris’s liking.

Adam started to talk about how Eric had this pickup truck, and before Adam could finish his story about “this one time after a game,” Carp lost it a little, interrupted him mid-sentence. “Don’t tell me that. I don’t wanna know.”

Adam was genuinely confused. “Why?”

“Because, it’s just, I don’t know. High school was a long time ago,” he said, genuinely embarrassed that he might have been getting jealous over something that happened more than ten years prior. “It’s...I mean, you have me now.”

Adam’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yeah. I’m here, aren’t I?”

Adam went down on him for, like, a solid hour that night, and Chris came hard enough for his rib to hurt marginally more than it already did at the time.  
He told Adam after, “It’s just so...good.” He felt like he’d used that word a million times.

Adam grinned and said softly, “What is?”

You’re just trying to make me say it, Chris thought. “All,” he hummed softly, closing his eyes.

He fell asleep like that, and when he woke up, Adam was gone, slipped out before any of their teammates could wake up and spot him leaving Carp’s room.

***

(May 2012)

St. Louis has perfect May weather, save the occasional bout of miserable humidity. The air is packed with moisture today but Adam doesn’t notice. Big fat “W” over the Padres and he’s too wrapped up in the moment to feel the crushing heat. He wipes his eyes on the sleeve of his jersey as he walks off the mound, wanting to curl up and cry hysterically.

Complete game shutout, something like seven hits. They’ll say stuff about “The Adam Wainwright of old” in every article and every baseball show; Cy Young runner-up returned to form.

When a reporter asks what his reaction to the game was, he tells her honestly, “I just let out a girly yell.” Tells her, “I knew I could do it. I knew I would do it,” and once he says the words aloud, he realizes that if they were really true, he probably wouldn’t be so emotional about going the distance.

Carp finds Adam after the cameras and microphones disperse, knocks into him and claims it’s the happiest he’s ever seen him during a start, and Adam finally lets himself go, just a bit, sniffling and dragging his hands over his face. Carp has the decency not to say anything about it, pats Adam on the back and walks away because there are still people around. Adam wishes he could stay, wanting the company of a pitcher who might understand what he’s going through because Carp’s career has been admittedly injury-plagued.

***

(continued)

Compared to his usual self, Adam’s been relatively silent today, even once the locker room empties and it’s just the two of them the way it normally is. On days that either one of them starts, they’re the last ones ready; Adam takes his time in the shower and Carp waits for him because they’ve been walking to their cars together since Adam came up. Now that Carp’s injured, he has all the time in the world. He goes to Adam’s games and watches silently, almost wishing they’d end sooner so he’d get Adam alone.

He gives Adam some time to recollect himself after telling him how happy he’d looked on the mound, then re-enters the locker room once it’s emptied out a bit to ask if Adam’s leaving soon.

Adam’s buttoning his shirt and then picking up his bag, small smile on his face, a successful pitcher again for at least another four days, and after that he’ll have another start to re-prove himself. Carp watches him close his eyes and shake his head almost imperceptibly, dimples on full display, forehead leaned against the locker. He’s pretty sure Adam doesn’t know he’s not alone, the way his back is turned and he’s facing the wall.

Carp taps him on the shoulder with the back of his hand and says, “You were great. Fucking epic. I meant what I said earlier.”

Adam turns around, pure face and white teeth, and ropes his arm around Chris’s shoulder, kisses him hard on the cheek. Chris freezes, stiff and not knowing how to react because they may as well be in public; people they know are floating around somewhere nearby in the stadium.

“Hey, man,” Carp mumbles quietly, “Not the time.”

Adam retracts his arm, grinning. “Sorry,” he apologizes, not sounding sorry so much as elated.

“Don’t worry about it. Just, you know.”

Adam nods, and the far-away look returns to his eyes (baseball nostalgia, Carp assumes), corners of his mouth upturned subtly with his lips sealed together.  


“How’s the elbow?” Chris asks, keeping his voice low even though no one is within earshot. They’re always cautious talking about their physical health; it’s natural at this point. Sometimes Adam can’t move the joints of his arm without clenching his teeth in pain and Chris notices but neither of them tells a trainer because Chris being on the DL is bad enough. It’s beyond irresponsible and more than a little selfish, but Adam swears the pain is rare and Chris mostly believes him.

Adam compulsively grabs the Tommy John elbow, massaging absentmindedly. “Never better. Seriously. Feels strong.”

“That’s great, Wainwright. Good for you. Congratulations.”

“Yeah. Now you just gotta tough out this whole rib thing. If you quit bein’ such a whiny bitch about it, you could pitch, easy,” he teases.

Carp snorts. He’s always liked the way Adam sounds on the rare occasions where he’ll use a word like “bitch.”

“Well, you know. Rib removal is a simple procedure, takes no time to heal, should be fine for my start on Tuesday. Just gotta get some ice on that and bam, I’m in,” he says, attempting to reciprocate the light mood. He knows Adam’s messing around to try to make him feel better, but the truth of the matter is that there’s nothing anyone can do about Carp's situation and Adam is one of the few people who understands how frustrating it is. He's the only person with the ability to make it lighter on Chris.

Adam gets all serious, musta seen something in Chris’s face that he didn’t like. “Just be patient, Carp. It’ll happen for you.”

“I know,” Carp sighs, and that’s the most he’ll let himself complain. “Hope it’s sooner rather than later.”

“It will be. September, man, I promise.”

“Come on, you really believe that?”

“No, man, swear to God, you’ll get back before season’s end. We all know you can.”

They walk outside, a couple feet apart but Carp is miles away thinking about Adam on the mound earlier, locked in and on his game, and the recent memory is tinged with jealousy but that isn’t his fault.

And that’s essentially how Carp’s regular season goes. He wishes he could be out there on the field, but he can’t, so he tries to make the best out of what he’s got.  


They don’t sneak around all that often, because Adam isn’t doing as well as he’d like so he devotes his every waking minute to getting back on his game. Usually, when he talks to Carp, it’s about pitching off of surgery. There are occasions where Carp feels like he’s mentoring Adam again, showing him all the tricks and techniques that they don’t teach you in the minors or during spring training.

Difference now is that Carp has days where he’s too antsy to sit still and he can’t not touch Adam. Sometimes Adam gets irritated because he’s trying to have a serious conversation about an upcoming start. Other times (usually after Adam goes at least six innings and gives up less than three runs) he lets Chris do whatever he wants, taking over eventually and trying his best to be gentle with Chris’s injured body.

Chris feels too delicate, useless for at least five months, stupid motherfucking rib.

They can’t do all that much with each other, both of them keeping in mind that none of it would be worth it if one of them messed up and potentially costed Chris another 3 months removed from baseball. Chris goes to a game on one of Adam’s rest days, partly to support the team but also because he’s bored and he can feel Alyson’s tolerance of him hanging around the house declining dangerously. Adam has Chris pushed up against the wall inside a closed bathroom stall while the rest of the team is either in the dugout or on the field, Chris doesn’t really know or care. Adam starts to unhook his own belt, starts to turn Chris around and then stops abruptly. He touches Chris tenderly through his shirt, over where it aches the most, searing pain in Chris’s chest below his heart.

“I don’t wanna hurt you,” Adam mumbles into his ear, voice still thick with desire.

“Doesn’t make a difference,” Chris mutters, annoyed at himself that he didn’t see this coming. “It’ll hurt no matter what I do with it. An injury’s an injury. C’mon, can we just, please, Adam, really...”

“No. Not worth it. Not at all." Adam re-buckles his belt, reaches around Chris to unlock the stall and walks into the part of the locker room that has a circle of plush couches and a raised flat screen. “We’ll jus’ do something else."

Adam falls onto a couch and stretches out all the way. Chris groans with frustration, still turned on but not able to do much about it. He limps over to Adam, who sits up to make room for him, lets Chris take a seat where his head had been, and lies back down, using Chris’s legs as a pillow. Chris drapes his arms over Adam’s chest, holding him in place. He doesn’t try anything stupid other than bending over to give Adam a quick kiss on the cheek, because they aren’t behind any locked doors, and anyone could walk right the fuck in and ask what the hell is going on.

As the season progresses, it feels like they’ve been doing this for years.

The aspects of Chris’s life that should be perfect (baseball, his marriage, pitching, baseball) are no longer things he can rely on to make him happy. It’s just Adam, Adam who’s always meant something to him but, well, more so now.

Chris works on rehabbing and thinks wistfully about what it could be like if they were both healthy. September, he thinks, is a long way off.

***

(December 2012)

So now it’s like this.

It’s like the sting of dropping those last two games in San Francisco isn’t as bad because finally, finally, things between them have been settled, for better or for worse, and they can hang out in relatively stress-free environments.

It's like when Adam goes to Nashville on the third, arrives at the hotel and takes a picture of himself making a ridiculous face before he goes to sleep. He texts it to Chris with the caption “having a blast at the winter meetigns!!”

Chris is there by the next day, tackling Adam and shutting the door behind them, breathlessly fitting in between long kisses that he had to ask the front desk what room Adam was in and they gave him the wrong number. He explains that he knocked on 334 instead of 344 and Billy Beane answered, puzzled and then irritated when he attempted an unconvincing apology, and Adam laughs for a good ten minutes at that image before Chris shuts him up by pinning him down on the bed and pressing their mouths together, nearly splitting Adam’s lip.

Neither of them has anything to negotiate, but the meetings are a good excuse to meet up and spends hours upon hours in each other’s company. Two days pass and Adam’s knees are bruised from the time he spends kneeling on the floor, his shoulders sore because he’s been propping himself up using his hands. During the rare stretches of time that they aren’t all over each other, they talk, and it’s real nice, so nice that Adam still has trouble believing it's really him that's this lucky.  


It’s like the drives Chris makes on a consistent basis from St. Louis to St. Simons Island are worth it, because as far as Chris is concerned, they are. He likes seeing Adam all happy and and glowing, warm sun beating down on his back. Adam’s younger in Georgia. They go to beaches, even on days that are too chilly to just wear t-shirts, because Adam shows Chris all the secluded shores that are deserted during the winter. They lie next to each other in the sand, Adam on his back and Chris on his stomach. Adam slides his arm over Chris’s waist and Chris closes his eyes, makes everything else disappear.

Like falling asleep together on hotel beds and couches and empty houses after being pressed up against walls is never going to get old, because it probably won’t. Hard to find something better than Adam’s lips and hands, the look in his eyes when he’s too turned on to form proper words so he just stutters and gives up, lets Chris do whatever he wants.

It’s like their contracts don’t exist. Like Adam doesn’t keep getting asked about a possible extension in the spring and like Chris’s isn’t up kind of soon by baseball standards.

It’s like they’ve been doing this for decades but they still haven’t found a rhythm, because sometimes Chris still isn’t sure what he wants, and Adam has to convince him it’s fine, even when there are times where he’s not so sure himself. And once in a while, Chris, panting, tells Adam to slow down or just stop, because his rib is absolutely killing him and he needs to regain his senses. Usually by the time he comes back around, he finds Adam buttoning up his shirt and refusing to go on, kissing Carp loosely on the forehead as a final goodbye before he heads back home.

Most of the time, though, well, most of the time it’s just fine. They keep the secret and Adam prays for both of them that there won’t be a day it affects their families or their careers. Chris spends loads of time with his kids, makes Alyson breakfast every other morning, though sometimes the latter feels more like he’s trying to compensate for what he’s doing with Adam. Adam stays up late with Jenny, trying to re-adjust himself to her body, even though things with her aren’t like they used to be and that’s probably his fault.

He really does try, until the baby decides to wake up and start screaming and one of them has to get up, turn on the light and fix whatever’s wrong. Sometimes he thinks Jenny might be getting exasperated with him, but that’s only sometimes.

When they meet up, Adam usually tells his wife he’s going fishing alone. Carp is more honest about it, explaining to Alyson that he goes on all these trips because he’s making a serious effort to keep his relationships with teammates going into the offseason, just in case someone gets traded or something. Alyson says that’s sweet of him, and Carp smiles feebly. The wrench he feels in his gut disappears when Adam’s pulling him into his arms, kissing him senseless until he finds himself facedown on a mattress thinking, Why didn’t we do this sooner?

So it’s kind of like they’re still in the outfield with their caps pulled over their eyes, daydreams turned reality, doubt quite some distance away and nothing more than another season ahead.


End file.
